by Jane Ashford
“Did you enjoy the program?” Marianne inquired.
“Her voice is splendid,” answered Georgina, “but I thought the selections poorly organized, and of course, she went on too long.”
“You are a connoisseur, I see.”
“I?” Georgina looked startled. “Oh no. I am fond of music, and attend concerts whenever I can, but my tastes are uneducated.”
“Indeed, anyone can see that,” teased Marianne gently. “That is why you brought your music to follow along.” She indicated the morocco folder tucked under the other’s arm.
Georgina flushed a little. “I had heard she was to sing the aria, and I just thought…”
“You needn’t act as if I’d caught you at something shameful. I admire your application. Do you sing?”
Seeing that she meant it, Georgina smiled. “I am a mere amateur.”
“Oh yes, we have established that.” The younger girl smiled again. She found Miss Goring’s modesty endearing. “I wish I liked music more. My brother says I play the pianoforte as if I had no fingers, only fists. I began late in life, of course.”
“You have other talents,” offered Georgina.
“Do I? Perhaps.” She smiled ruefully.
They reached the rooms where the buffet was spread, and the ladies sat round a table while the gentlemen went off to fill plates. Separated from her husband, Lady Bentham seemed to recall her social obligations, and she addressed some remark to each of them in turn, and introduced Georgina and Susan to several passing fashionables. She was just about to present another when Susan abruptly stood and moved a few steps away from the table. Startled, the others merely watched as she tossed her red curls and smiled brilliantly at an approaching gentleman—Baron Ellerton.
Whether he would have paused to speak to them was unclear, and irrelevant now, for he had no choice. He strolled back to their table beside Susan and greeted the other ladies with a pleasant smile. They had begun to exchange the usual comments about the performance when Susan blurted out, “Do sit down and join us.”
Georgina couldn’t restrain a grimace. Lady Bentham looked vaguely surprised, and Marianne’s expression was a mixture of amusement, annoyance, and commiseration. The baron, unfailingly polite, agreed. “For a moment, perhaps.” But he did not take the chair next to Susan, moving rather to that between Georgina and Lady Bentham.
Susan frowned, but the return of the other gentlemen with loaded plates put an end to conversation. As they were handing round their booty and finding chairs themselves, Georgina murmured, “I do beg your pardon.”
Her voice was so low the baron barely heard, but he turned toward her, and Georgina’s cheeks reddened a little as she repeated the apology.
“No need,” he replied, smiling in a way that made Georgina’s pulse quicken. He really was extraordinarily handsome, she told herself, trying to explain her uncharacteristic susceptibility. And, of course, one couldn’t help thinking of his great position. But she’d encountered men with both these attributes before during her stays in London. What was it about this one, she wondered, that affected her so acutely?
It must be embarrassment over Susan’s behavior. She’d never been in charge of another when going into society.
“Why be so very concerned about Miss Susan Wyndham’s, er, enthusiasms?” he asked, still smiling.
“I must be. I am in charge of her, you see, and—”
“You?”
He needn’t be quite so surprised, Georgina thought, nettled. “I am well able to look after her.” But even as she said it, she wished she’d held her tongue. She hadn’t demonstrated any such skill tonight or at the ball where Susan had nearly lost her temper. Indeed, he had saved that situation while she stood by like a stone. She waited for a mocking setdown, which she undoubtedly deserved.
“I meant only that you are young to be in sole charge of a deb,” he added. “And one who will most likely be, er, very lively.” He smiled again, inviting her to share his mild joke and appreciating the play of expression across her face. This woman was unusual, he thought. On the one hand, she possessed a quiet elegance of dress and demeanor that suggested aloof disinterest. Had he not spoken to her, he would have merely admired the classically severe lines of her cream silk gown and her way of holding herself, and moved on. But in conversation she revealed a susceptibility and an endearing hint of uncertainty that was at odds with her cool beauty. She was, Ellerton thought, neither one thing nor the other, and he found the combination arresting.
Georgina gazed at him. He really wasn’t mocking her, she saw with astonishment. Nor was he exhibiting the boredom and impatience she had expected to see in a very few minutes after he sat down. The expression in his eyes was interested and… She groped for a word. Measuring.
Georgina had not found much kindness in the higher reaches of London society. Indeed, her experience was just the opposite. In her own first Season, she’d been subject to enough sly raillery and careless setdowns to last her a lifetime; and though she’d changed a great deal since then, her expectations had not.
Had she considered the matter beforehand, Georgina would have been certain Baron Ellerton was a supercilious, arrogant man, like many others she’d encountered, and that he would have no interest whatsoever in her. Now, faced with his actual behavior, she was nonplussed.
“I feel somehow as if I’ve made a blunder,” he said in response to her silence. “But I’m not certain what it is. I was not, you know, impugning either your ability or Miss Wyndham’s character.”
“No, no. You were…” Georgina faltered, wishing desperately for some of the social address he possessed in such abundance.
“Commenting on things which are none of my affair?” he finished, smiling once again. “My friends claim it is one of my most distressing failings. They find my fascination with the human comedy incomprehensible.”
Some of Georgina’s awkwardness dissolved in curiosity. “The human comedy?”
He gestured at the people around them. “What else can one call it? Look at Rollin Enderby, for example.” He nodded toward a gentleman two tables off.
“You mean the man with the nagging wife?”
He looked surprised. “You know him?”
Georgina cursed her wayward tongue. “No, but I…” She swallowed nervously. “You can see from the way he sits, and the way she is speaking to him.”
Ellerton glanced at the Enderbys again, and then at Georgina, an arrested expression in his vivid blue eyes. This woman impressed him. “You can indeed. Is this your first visit to London, Miss Goring?”
She blinked. “No, I spent a Season in town some years ago. And I occasionally visit my aunt—Lady Goring.”
“Ah. But we have not met.”
“No.”
“I wonder why?”
Georgina wondered why he should ask.
“But that is unimportant; we have met now,” he went on before she could reply. “What do you think of Signora Veldini?”
Without thinking, Georgina repeated what she had said to Lady Marianne. Ellerton nodded appreciatively. “Indeed, discernment is as important to art as innate talent, is it not? Her voice is splendid, but she has no sense of pace or selection. I wonder at her great reputation.”
Georgina nodded, amazed. He had clearly given thought to the subject, and his conclusions were very similar to her own. Again, he was behaving quite unlike her idea of a man of fashion.
Ellerton had by this time noticed the morocco folder, which Georgina had put under her chair. “May I?” he asked, bending to retrieve it. Before she could reply, he was flipping through the pages of music. His chestnut eyebrows rose. “Your score is in Italian.”
Georgina flushed again. She had been called a bluestocking often enough, and in such insulting tones that she braced herself for a sneer. And she found to her astonishment that she particularly dread
ed such a response from him. Moreover, it was monstrously unfair. Her studies were limited to music, for which her passion had grown as she matured.
“My compliments,” he added with another smile.
Georgina searched his face for mockery, and did not find it. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t laughing at her. “I don’t speak it,” she responded hurriedly. “And I read it poorly—just for the music.”
“You must be very fond of music, then.” He was examining her face with interest. The more one conversed with her, he thought, the more one realized her beauty. She was not the sort of woman who could pose, statuelike, and be beautiful. Her appeal was more subtle and elusive, tied to her personality.
“Yes,” answered Georgina quietly. Her heart was beating very fast—because she had expected a setdown, she told herself.
“You must educate me, sometime,” Ellerton went on. “I prefer to understand as well as appreciate. In all things.”
Georgina glanced up, surprised again, and the look she met in his eyes froze her tongue.
At this moment, Susan, irritated beyond measure by Ellerton’s lack of attention to her, leaned forward and said, “It’s nearly time to go back to our seats. Will you join us, Baron Ellerton?”
Her effrontery left the others speechless. But Ellerton merely smiled slightly and rose. “I beg your pardon, but I am promised to friends.” And with a nod, he took his leave.
Susan opened her mouth to protest, and Georgina plunged in, leaning forward over her plate. “Do you like the lobster patties, Susan? Have you had them before? Oh, you are eating meringues, I see. They are delicious, are they not? We must ask the countess where she purchased them. Or perhaps she has a splendid cook. I do hope not, for I should so like to get some of these.”
By this time, Baron Ellerton was well away, and the other members of Georgina’s group were gazing at her in mild astonishment. None of them had ever heard her utter such a string of nonsense.
The moment of danger past, Georgina subsided, and talk again became general. But Susan ignored Tony Brinmore’s feeble efforts at conversation and glared balefully first at Georgina, then at the retreating figure of the baron. “He hardly spoke to me,” she said aloud, making Georgina wince. “And after I specifically asked him to join us.” She paused. Georgina was relieved to see that only Marianne appeared to be listening. Susan’s pretty face set. “The next time, he will notice me,” she assured herself with a small nod. “He will indeed.”
Grorgina pushed her plate away, hunger quelled. Marianne bit her full lower lip thoughtfully for a moment, then slowly smiled. The curve of her lips, Georgina saw with a sinking heart, precisely matched that of Susan’s. In fact, in the brief interval before the two girls’ attention was diverted, they looked more alike than Georgina would have thought possible.
Four
Two mornings later, on a very fine, warm day, Marianne encountered Tony Brinmore in the front hall of the Bentham house, on the point of going out. “Where are you off to?” asked Marianne, who was feeling bored.
“Oh, engagement with William Wyndham,” he answered, hand on the doorknob.
This made him even more interesting. “To go where?”
“Nowhere you’d like.” Tony opened the door, his impatience to be gone obvious.
But if he had thought to discourage Marianne by these methods, he was sadly mistaken. His resistance merely increased her curiosity. “Where?” she insisted.
Tony sighed heavily. “Wyndham heard of a balloon ascension on Hampstead Heath. We’re riding out to watch. It ain’t the least fashionable. You wouldn’t care for it.”
“On the contrary, I should like it above all things. I shall come with you.”
Tony’s dismay was so clear that she had to laugh. “Come now, it is not so bad as that. I assure you I shall enjoy myself. I attended a balloon ascension last Season, and it was wonderful. And I shan’t get in your way.”
This, thought Tony, was impossible. Having charge of a female would change the whole character of the expedition. And of all females, Marianne was perhaps the last he would choose. Inspiration struck him. “You can’t go alone. It’s just to be Wyndham and me, you know.”
“I could take my maid. But I really don’t think it necessary. You are an old friend of the family—or Sir Thomas’s family, at any rate.” This was weak, and Marianne hurried to divert him. “You won’t refuse to let me come? You could not be so mean!”
Tony groped for a response. That was exactly what he wanted, but it did seem harsh and unfeeling when she gazed at him in that reproachful way, as if he was callous as well as rude. “It ain’t an expedition for girls,” he responded desperately. “I’m taking Growser, and we’re riding, and—”
“I ride better than you, I wager,” retorted Marianne, beginning to be angry. Why should he deny her this outing when she had been feeling so bored?
Tony felt trapped, but he didn’t see any way out, or any that wasn’t inexcusably impolite to the daughter of his hosts. “Oh, very well,” he said grudgingly.
“I’ll go up and change,” replied Marianne with a broad smile. “I won’t be a moment.”
“Mind you aren’t. Wyndham will be waiting. I’ll be in the stables.”
When Marianne met him there some twenty minutes later, Tony was holding the reins of both their horses and looking mulish. “If that’s what you call a moment—” he began.
“Oh, don’t be prickly. I’m here now. Shall we go?”
Marianne started to mount at the block, then paused as she noticed a strange animal waiting on the other side of Tony’s horse. “What is that?”
Tony bristled. “That is Growser, and he is coming with us.” His tone conveyed a great deal, and Marianne remembered what he’d said when he first arrived. She walked around to look at the dog. Growser was clearly of no particular breed. He was large and shaggy, brown, and, Marianne could see, very old. The hairs of his muzzle were white, and he moved with the economy of age. As she came closer, the dog looked to Tony for a sign, and receiving no demur, began to wag his short tail. His eyes, though nearly obscured by fur, were bright and good-natured.
She laughed and sank to her knees, rubbing Growser vigorously behind the ears. He wriggled in ecstasy and licked her face. Marianne laughed again.
Tony gaped, astonished that the formidable Lady Marianne would deign to notice Growser. But there could be no doubt her interest was genuine. Watching them, he smiled and thawed a bit toward her.
“Will he be all right running beside the horses?” she asked, standing again.
“Oh yes. He’s still lively, though he is old.”
“You said you’ve had him a long time, I remember.”
“Nearly all my life.” Tony braced himself for a joke. He’d often been teased about his attachment to such an unprepossessing animal.
But Marianne replied only, “My brother and I each had a puppy when I was small. My Sandy died three years ago, or I should have brought her to London.”
Tony relented further. Perhaps, he thought, his judgment of Marianne had been prematurely harsh. However, he said only, “We should go.”
She mounted, and they set off for the Goring house. It was not far, and they arrived to find William waiting for them in front. Tony started to apologize for their tardiness, but before he could speak, William said, “I’m sorry, Tony, but Susan found out where I was going, and she insists upon coming along. I couldn’t persuade her that she won’t like it, though I swear I tried my best.”
Tony laughed and shook his head. “It seems we’re in the same case, then.” He indicated Marianne with a gesture.
William, who had been too full of his own concern to notice her until then, flushed and looked uncomfortable, wishing he hadn’t been so vehement.
Marianne laughed aloud. “You poor things! But I daresay it won’t be half as bad as you think. We
shan’t bother you, and now that there are two of us, we can keep one another company.” Only to herself did she admit a slight sense of relief that the proprieties would also be satisfied.
“I didn’t mean…” stammered William. “That is, of course I am only too happy to have you come, Lady Marianne.”
“You are too kind, sir,” she responded teasingly.
He looked up quickly, then smiled at the ridiculousness of the thing.
“Is your sister ready?” asked Tony in resigned tones.
“Yes, I’ll get her.” William walked around the corner of the house toward the stable yard.
“Alas, Mr. Brinmore, the next time you must sneak out the back door in the dead of night,” teased Marianne.
“I shall,” he replied feelingly, then flushed at the rudeness of this response.
The others appeared, already mounted, and Tony and Marianne moved forward to join them. Susan had clearly been informed of the other addition to their party, and she greeted Marianne with politeness if not with joy.
“It is rather a long ride,” warned Tony, with perhaps a last lingering hope that the ladies would reconsider.
William and Marianne turned their horses’ heads obligingly, but Susan did not stir. “Is that your dog?” she asked Tony.
He looked belligerent. “It is, and he’s coming!” He braced himself to squelch any objections. He had borne enough, he told himself.
“Well, then, I am bringing Daisy,” Susan declared, starting to slide to the pavement.
“Susan, no!” exclaimed her brother.
Marianne and Tony exchanged a mystified look.
“If he’s bringing that creature, I don’t see any reason why not,” she replied, starting toward the front door.
“They’ll fight. He’ll get lost, and we’ll spend hours looking for him. He’ll…”
“Nonsense!” declared Susan, and disappeared inside the house.
“Oh, Lord,” said Tony, goaded beyond endurance.
“Who, or perhaps I should say what, is Daisy?” Marianne inquired.
